Monthly Archives: July 2013

Rep Jason Chaffetz appeared on Fox News, today to talk about the upcoming oversight subcommittee probe into the August 2011 Chinook helicopter crash that killed 22 SEAL Team Six members.

Chaffetz told Alisyn Camerota that a couple of years after the event, the families still don’t have some basic answers, and “there really are some strange things, here.”

He would like to give the Pentagon a chance to respond to the family’s concerns and hopefully provide them with some satisfying answers.

He noted that they were able to recover the bodies from the crash but not the black box, because it was supposedly washed away in a flash flood.

The bodies were cremated, but based on the autopsy photo provided by one of the families – that was perhaps not necessary.

And the most disturbing thing he said he’s seen is the video of the local cleric “blessing” the bodies of American servicemen – apparently calling them infidels in Arabic.

Here’sMichael Savage’s blockbuster interview with Charles Strange, the father of Michael Strange – one of the SEALS killed in the crash, discussing all that and much more.

Chaffetz was also asked about the suspects who are still at large in Benghazi. Reportedly, we know who and where they are, but no one’s made an effort to capture them – certainly not the FBI who have been AWOL. Apparently CNN was able to get an exclusive interview with the leader of Ansar al-Sharia, but after Obama repeatedly promised “he wouldn’t rest” until the terrorists were “hunted down” and “brought to justice”, the Regime remains out of the loop.

Like this:

Pundits on both sides of the aisle are finding Obama’s umpteenth pivot to the economy a rehash of stale policies that most likely won’t be enacted. But Stanley Kurtz argues that it’s not that the Regime is out of ideas – it’s that Obama’s boldest policy initiative is something he’d rather not discuss.

What if instead of “fighting for the middle class”, as Obama pretends he’s doing, he’s currently enacting a scheme that will destroy middle class suburbia?

Kurtz writes, “early but unmistakable signs indicate that Obama’s regionalist push is well underway.” And of course this is all very hush-hush. The president is not talking about it, nor is the MSM.

The most obvious new element of the president’s regionalist policy initiative is the July 19 publication of a Department of Housing and Urban Development regulation broadening the obligation of recipients of federal aid to “affirmatively further fair housing.” The apparent purpose of this rule change is to force suburban neighborhoods with no record of housing discrimination to build more public housing targeted to ethnic and racial minorities. Several administration critics noticed the change and challenged it, while the mainstream press has simply declined to cover the story.

Yet even critics have missed the real thrust of HUD’s revolutionary rule change. That’s understandable, since the Obama administration is at pains to downplay the regionalist philosophy behind its new directive. The truth is, HUD’s new rule is about a great deal more than forcing racial and ethnic diversity on the suburbs. (Regionalism, by the way, is actually highly controversial among minority groups. There are many ways in which both middle-class minorities in suburbs, and less well-off minorities in cities, can be hurt by regionalist policies–another reason those plans are seldom discussed.)

The new HUD rule is really about changing the way Americans live. It is part of a broader suite of initiatives designed to block suburban development, press Americans into hyper-dense cities, and force us out of our cars. Government-mandated ethnic and racial diversification plays a role in this scheme, yet the broader goal is forced “economic integration.” The ultimate vision is to make all neighborhoods more or less alike, turning traditional cities into ultra-dense Manhattans, while making suburbs look more like cities do now. In this centrally-planned utopia, steadily increasing numbers will live cheek-by-jowl in “stack and pack” high-rises close to public transportation, while automobiles fall into relative disuse.

Kurtz goes on to describe the San Francisco “Plan Bay Area,” a region-wide blueprint designed to control development in the nine-county, 101-town region around San Francisco.

He says that the Obama administration’s goal is “to use legal and financial carrots and sticks to press Plan Bay Area clones on regions across the country through its federally-funded Regional Planning Grant program.”

The new HUD rule will be folded into this broader strategy. (I lay out the structure, philosophy, and history of that strategy in Spreading the Wealth.)

When Secretary Donovan announced the sweeping new HUD rule, he said: “Make no mistake: this is a big deal.” He’s right. Yet the mainstream press has ignored the change, as well as the broader story behind it. Recognizing the politically explosive nature of its regionalist plans, the Obama administration does little to connect the dots for the public at large. Above all, the president himself avoids this issue, although it’s deeply embedded in his administration’s policies.

Obama isn’t actually out of bold ideas. They’re simply too controversial for him to discuss. The time has come for a national debate on the Obama administration’s regionalist policies.

Then again, Obama’s goal may be nothing more than an effort to move Democrat voters into conservative areas. Because when it’s all said and done – what is it that motivates this president and his fellow travelers in congress more than anything else?

Policies initiated by Democrats are intended first and foremost to cement the place and power of Democrats in the American polity. As I pointed out awhile back, all the post-election talk about what Obama’s second agenda would be (energy? jobs? foreign policy? and so on) was meaningless since there would be one and only one second-term agenda for this president:

There is nothing that will sidetrack him and the rest of the party from this goal. Increasing unemployment won’t, nor North Korean nuclear tests, nor a weakening dollar, nor anything else.

… to eliminate political and economic competition to himself first and the Democrat party second. There is no other Obama agenda. Not jobs, not economic growth, not anything. Emplacing permanent one-party rule in this country is the sole goal for term 2.

That is what he is really doing, very energetically, while we grow tired of paying attention to him.

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out Wednesday morning.

Simple, no?

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members on the oldest and most established blogging group in the ‘sphere …and grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety that comes with it. And how good is that, eh?

Like this:

Al Sharpton helped incite anti-Jewish riots in Crown Heights, New York in 1991, was convicted of libel for his role in the racially charged Tawana Brawley hoax, incited black anti-Semites against a Jewish business establishment in Harlem in 1995, and stood with the New Black Panthers at a Sanford, Florida “Justice For Trayvon” rally, in March of last year. It’s pathetic that the MSM gives this despicable character a microphone to disseminate his toxic racialist views. It’s scandalous that such a miscreant would be invited to the White House.

The “Reverend Al” revealed the details of his meeting on MSNBC, today with host, Thomas Roberts.

Sharpton revealed that the Department of Justice and the White House intend to vigorously enforce the VRA, particularly against states instituting questionable voter ID laws. He added that Texas and North Carolina were two specific states in the DOJ’s crosshairs.

“It was one meeting – it was unprecedented – the attorney general and the president in the Roosevelt Room of the White House,” Sharpton began. “I talked to the attorney general for an hour and the president for 40 minutes.”

Sharpton said that the DOJ will aggressively combat efforts to disenfranchise voters at the state level and that the Supreme Court decision striking down portions of the VRA as unconstitutional does not prohibit the enforcement of most of the provisions in that law.

For sh*ts and giggles read the comments at Mediaite for some excellent examples of the soft racism of low expectations. It’s rilly rilly hard for blacks to get I.D.’s, you know. That’s why voter ID laws disproportionately effect poor, stupid, helpless black people – who also can’t fly, buy liqueur, check out books from the library, open banking accounts, write checks, go to Obama fund-raising events and any number of other things you need IDs for. But nobody is up in arms about that. They only seem to get exercised about voting. The ability to vote for Obama multiple times is a cherished civil right encoded in the Voter Rights Act, apparently.

Hosting race-baiters of Al Sharpton’s ilk is almost as bad. “The People’s House” is turning into the proverbial “wretched hive of villainy and scum.”

Exit Question: Why hasn’t Holder been hounded out of office yet? How many scandals does the man have to be embroiled in and how many times does he need to be caught lying to Congress, before Republicans in the House impeach the corrupt S.O.B.?

Like this:

On July 24, radio talk-host Michael Savage interviewed Charles Strange, the father of Michael Strange, one of the 22 SEAL Team Six members who died in that Chinook helicopter crash in August of 2011. This was a momentous, blockbuster interview that seems to have gone unnoticed by most of the internet.

– His son and his fellow SEALS knew “something was going on with the team”, and “somebody’s leaking things out”….(besides Former CIA Director Leon Panetta and Vice President Joe Biden?) They knew “something was going on” and were putting their affairs in order.

– According to Mr. Strange, Michael along with 8 other SEALS made it out of the Chinook and were fighting on the ground.

– Mr. Strange stated that he was “100% sure” that the Regime had executed his son and the others on purpose.

– Mr. Strange was told “Michael knew what only 4 people in the world knew.”

– The chopper’s black box was never recovered because it was supposedly “washed away in a flash flood.”

– At Dover Airforce Base, after Obama told Mr Strange his son “changed the way Americans live,” he embraced the weeping father, who proceeded to wipe his nose on the president’s jacket (a story Mr. Strange loves to tell, according to his wife.)

– Imam at ceremony at Bagram Air Force base condemned the men as “white devils” and “infidels”.

– All the bodies were cremated.

– According to Mr. Strange, some of the families are not speaking out because they are getting “threatened by the command”: “The checks could stop – or the kid who doesn’t have a father now, might not get a scholarship for college.”

– Mr. Strange believes his phones are tapped.

– Recently Michael Strange was awarded the Silver Star for valor. His parents were not invited to the White House for the Ceremony.

After Vice President Joe Biden revealed that SEAL Team 6 carried out the operation that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, Strange said the members of his son’s team gave startling indications to their families they were about to meet their demise.

Charles Strange, the father of slain SEAL Michael Strange, told Savage Wednesday night that in June 2011, on at least three separate occasions his son grabbed him by the bicep and announced that he had prepared his will.

Like this:

Republican leaders in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are seeking a new investigation of allegations of political targeting by the Internal Revenue Service. The targeting they are asking Treasury IG J. Russell George to look into involves existing conservative groups that had already received tax-exempt status.

“The totality of your ‘targeting’ investigation along with evidence obtained by the Committee points to the fact that the IRS may have selected certain conservative organizations for additional scrutiny after the IRS already approved their tax-exempt status,” Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, write in a letter to Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George.

Some examples of the apparently inappropriate treatment of conservative groups shared with Committee investigators include:

Leadership Institute, an organization that has been in existence since 1970. In audits in 2011 and 2012, the Leadership Institute was required to turn over 23,430 pages of documents to the IRS at a cost of roughly $50,000. The letter notes that Leadership Institute was asked “invasive questions, including requests for information about its interns and where they worked after their internships.”

Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute: Noting that the treatment it received by IRS amounted to “harassment,” the President of the Institute told Committee investigators that its audit “took the greater part of 2011 and cost tens of thousands of dollars.” The Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, like many Tea Party applicants targeted by the IRS during the same time frame, was asked for a “List of contributors and Amounts.”